Civic activists deemed the BBMP’s Budget outlay of ₹9291.33 crore as realistic. However, the Budget size points a deeper malaise in the city administration, said Srikanth Viswanathan, CEO, Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy.
“The current status quo of meagre funds and staffing in the BBMP is adversely impacting Bengaluru. The Brihan Mumbai Corporation manages half the area of BBMP, possibly one-third the road length and has more than three times its Budget. BBMP will need a Budget size of at least ₹30,000 crore and capacities and systems to utilize funds well, to break the current status quo,” he said.
Data released by Janaagraha on Saturday showed that the civic body’s reliance on grants from the ‘State and Union governments went up to 46% — from 40% last year. This, even as the BBMP has set itself an own revenue target of 50% this year.
However, Mr. Vishwanathan pointed out that of the grants from the State government – ₹3845.56 crore – only ₹785.86 crore was devolution grant from the State Finance Commission. The remaining was a one-time grant by the State government. “Ideally the devolution of taxes under the State Finance Commission must be significantly higher, giving the civic body discretion of how to use those funds,” he said.
According to Mr. Vishwanathan, now that the BBMP Act, 2020 is in place and fiscal discipline is being implemented, it is time for the State government to think about augmenting the resources of the civic body significantly.
“In an ideal condition, the city must stand on its own feet, but in our situation, property tax cannot be hiked multiple times at once. So in the intermediate, the civic body has to be funded by the state, like London is,” he said.
